Back in October, a group of evangelical Christians in Brazil called the Paz do Senhor Amado (Peace of the Beloved Lord) banned the use of USB connections because they’re Satanic.

And what makes them Satanic?

Because the logo looks like a pitchfork (or trident, if you prefer), an implement commonly used by the devil in Christian iconography to torture souls sent to hell. There are a couple of problems with that.

First, it would be a shitty trident. One of the points has a square on it and the other has a circle. It looks more like a device to simultaneously hold a marshmallow, a rice crispy treat, and a … triangle, I suppose … under the chocolate waterfall at the Golden Corral.

Second, there is no mention in the entire Bible of Satan having a trident. Not one time. Satan is not actually mentioned very often, and at no point do they bring up any kind of weaponry. Same goes for the horns, the goat legs, the tail, etc. In fact, there is no physical description of Satan at all, of any kind, anywhere in that book. All that classic stuff came about in the Middle Ages, probably when some painter got whacked off his face on laudanum (old-timey heroin) and just made it up.

Thirdly, there is and has always been a major logical inconsistency with the story of the Bible, sin, Hell, and Satan. This logical issue can be explained away with clever theological wordplay, or by admitting that the people who wrote the Bible were ignorant Iron-Age nomadic goatherds with maybe not the best sense of how to write a coherent story.

I’ll explain. We can all agree that, such as they exist as characters, God is good and Satan is bad. If Satan is bad, then he should wholeheartedly approve of all sinful activity. If you commit sinful activity, you go to hell. Where Satan is. So if you’re in hell for doing all this bad shit, shit that Satan watches with glee and — in some cases — actually made you do, why the hell would he punish you? You’re his new best friend!

I see you were quite a fan of premarital sex, eh? Nice work…

And if he does punish you, then why is he evil? If God decides what acts are wrong, and that you go to hell for doing them in order to suffer, and Satan is the implementor of that suffering (with USB ports, remember), then Satan is at worst a deputy of God’s will.

But let’s backtrack. This “cult” in Brazil — because any self-professed Christian group that the reporter doesn’t agree with gets called a cult — now had to replace all their USB stuff. I’m a reasonably tech-savvy person, I’ll grant, but I still have eight USB devices plugged into my computer at home.

That Satan is from the movie “Legend” Can’t remember what the hell the movie is about as soon as i saw that image it popped into my head. I was trying to find an image of him to make big goat legs for Halloween.

There is no mention that Satan will punish you in the bible. Hell is usually believed to be Godless place – thus emptiness. Not kingdom of Satan – that comes from Middle age, just like the trident, fires and all the shit.

Yes but if you’ve ever been to church, when they talk about hell(which, granted, might not be very often), they refer to fire, brimstone, and satanic pitchforks a lot.

And! Luke 16 22-24 (NIV): “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’”
Luke 16 28 (NIV): “for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also
come to this place of torment.’”

The Bible does mention fire and torment, and alludes to the Greek god Hades(at least in the NIV, NKJV, NRSV, NASB, and AMP versions. In the KJV and MSG versions it just says hell.). This reference to Hades suggests that the underworld does indeed have a ruler, and apparently his world is not a great place to be(referencing the words ‘torment’ and ‘agony’ here.).